1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a test environment and an associated method of testing and analyzing a semiconductor package material for stability in a sustained oxygen environment.
2. Related Art
A serious industry-wide problem is known to exist with semiconductor packages having an epoxy molding compound that includes an elemental red phosphorus-based flame retardant additive. After about two and a half years in the field, some of the semiconductor packages and materials therein failed, such as by developing electrical shorts, particularly during summer months during periods of high temperature and humidity. In efforts to understand why the fails occurred, the packaging material with red phosphorus was subjected to extensive testing by various interested parties, including conventional accelerated stress tests, tests involving exposure to humidity, elevated temperature, and voltage, etc. Unfortunately, the preceding tests demonstrated acceptable performance and therefore did not provide any insight as to why the aforementioned fails have been occurring with the semiconductor packages. The nature of this problem and the lack of insight into why this problem exits, as well as adverse consequences of this problem including the filing of multiple lawsuits, are discussed in “Nikkei Electronics” (Oct. 21, 2002). At present, there is no publicly available information that sheds light as to why the aforementioned fails have been occurring.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method of testing and analysis, as well as an associated test environment, that leads to detection and minimization of potential failure mechanisms in semiconductor packages containing potentially unstable materials such as red phosphorus.